Same health plan, different candidate

Gingrich also stumbled over the mandate in May on “Meet the Press.” “I believe all of us — and this is going to be a big debate — I believe all of us have a responsibility to help pay for health care,” he said.

“I think that there are ways to do it that make most libertarians relatively happy,” he said, adding that he’d support a requirement that individuals must have insurance or “post a bond or in some way you indicate you’re going to be held accountable.”

The next day, he released a Web video making his opposition to the mandate — and the rest of Obama’s health law — crystal clear.

“I am completely opposed to the Obamacare mandate on individuals. I fought it for 2½ years at the Center for Health Transformation,” he said. “I am for the repeal of Obamacare and I am against any effort to impose a federal mandate on anyone because it is fundamentally wrong and I believe unconstitutional.”

The “Meet the Press” appearance was the same in which he chastised House Republicans’ plan to turn Medicare into a voucher program as “right-wing social engineering.” Amid a conservative backlash, he recanted that critique of House Republican Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s plan, too.

A Gingrich spokesman did not respond to a request for comment. But earlier this month, the New Hampshire Union Leader asked Gingrich about the perceived flip-flop on the individual mandate.

“At the time, it was designed to block Hillarycare,” he said. “And the more you thought about it, the more you realized, a Congress which can compel you to do something like that can compel you to do anything. What’s the limit to Congress’s power to dictate your life?”

Gingrich hasn’t so clearly repudiated some of his other views — including his early support for Berwick, who drew fire from Senate Republicans for praising “rationing” in the British health system.

Years earlier, in a 2000 Washington Post op-ed uncovered this week by The American Spectator, Gingrich wrote: “Don Berwick at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement has worked for years to spread the word that the same systematic approach to quality control that has worked so well in manufacturing could create a dramatically safer, less expensive and more effective system of health and health care.”

Gingrich was an early supporter of using electronic medical records — an idea that has gotten support from Republicans and Democrats. He joined Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and baseball mastermind Billy Beane in a 2008 New York Times op-ed supporting their use in connection with the government in providing data for physicians and additional Medicare money for doctors who follow the private-public research — ideas that Republicans have opposed.

“Working closely with doctors, the federal government and the private sector should create a new institute for evidence-based medicine,” they wrote. “This institute would conduct new studies and systematically review the existing medical literature to help inform our nation’s overstretched medical providers. The government should also increase Medicare reimbursements and some liability protections for doctors who follow the recommended clinical best practices.”

Republicans have strongly criticized the health law’s “comparative effectiveness research” for trying to ration care that isn’t effective or efficient. While Gingrich has said he would oppose comparative effectiveness research, his op-ed suggests he sees a role in government-funded data for doctors.

To be sure, Gingrich has found common ground with the rest of the GOP on many health care issues. He says he would repeal Obama’s health law if given the chance. He has supported an alternative plan, outlined by the National Center for Policy Analysis’s John C. Goodman, that would provide a tax credit — perhaps about $7,000 per family — to help Americans buy health insurance. For those that choose not to buy, the money would go into a safety net pool. If someone in the pool got sick, they’d have access to basic, catastrophic coverage.

He’s also backed medical malpractice reform and providing states “block grants” to run the Medicaid program — ideas that are well within the current Republican health care mainstream.